>>When I was in the Austrian Tyrol many years ago it was less rugged
>>than most of the pennines, never mind Wales.
>
>??? I've never tried the Tyrol, but that was why I was checking pics:
>it did look slightly more "pointy" than the average bit of Snowdonia.
It's just those bits are a long way from where people live. Like an hour or two by car. Which might only be ten miles in a straight line.
>(I'm not even bothering to consider the rest of Wales: much too rounded
>and gentle!)
>Pennines? A lovely place, but if you've found anything rugged, I'd love
>to know where.
My point.
>> There's another snag in that with all the ski resorts and
>> modifications for tourists getting around is far easier than it
>> would have been in the past. The one big mountain we did visit
>> had a path wide enough for vehicles up to the summer snowline.
>
>Well, yes, you do have to visualise it without all that, but that goes
>for anywhere. Snowdon can only be considered without benefit of little
>railway and cafe.
It's just a heck of a lot easier to visualise in Snowdonia. There's less stuff to remove.
>Take a look at the pre-modern use of the place. Ancient tracks, sites of
>hillforts and stone castles, that sort of thing: myths that say what
>happens if you spend the night on top (indicating that this is an option).
>It may look impossibly difficult to us now, but if a sheep can get there,
>it can be farmed. And we do know the northern Stormwalks are passable in
>winter, without magic - just. Still, even the Matterhorn is climbable -
>my next door neighbour did it when she was in the Air Force.
Well I haven't looked at detail into the pre-modern use of the Tyrol but I understand that what are now the ski resorts were the highest villages which had become increasingly uneconomic for farming. For some reason sheep don't seem to have been common. The main livestock is, and was, cattle.
Travelling through such areas is dependent on how good the path is. Which relies on enough people having a reason to follow that route it make a path. Nowadays major peaks have enough climbers that there are decent paths most of the way up. A pre-modern community won't have the resources to spend unless there's something valuable to be gained.
If we take the Alps as a model for the Stormwalk mountains there shouldn't be any villages among the peaks which means no regular paths for traders to get through.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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